With HighJump’s flexible WMS platform, City Furniture increased accuracy and efficiency throughout its supply chain to create a seamless customer experience.

Florida furniture retailer City Furniture currently presides over 28 showrooms, one centralized million-square-foot distribution center, and a large (and ever-growing!) customer base. The company prides itself on its well-oiled supply chains, commitment to customer service, and efficient logistics.

In the past, City Furniture relied on homegrown WMS software that it could adjust as needed in response to shifting demands. Soon, however, it became clear that a more flexible and adaptive warehouse management system would be required to keep pace with the company’s growth.

Amazon has become such a critical source of revenue for countless internet retailers, distributors and manufacturers that it can afford to make up all the rules and leave it up to third parties to figure out how to meet them. Such is the power wielded by a retailer with 38 percent year-over-year revenue growth.

More than two decades ago, Jeff Bezos founded a website with the belief that a centralized online model would be better for consumers and his business than physical stores. That website, Amazon.com, started with books and over the years has become a one-stop shop for anything you could ever want. The result is the most powerful online retailer in the world and one of the most influential companies on the globe.

Helm’s business model is different than that of most companies – and the supply chain challenges it faces are equally unique.

The business provides branded merchandise, third-party fulfillment and technology solutions to a group of high-profile customers. Clients range from Domino’s Pizza to Merrell Shoes to auto giants like Ford and BMW. Products fulfilled from Helm’s two warehouses range from apparel to car owner manuals to refrigerators and everything in between. Every customer has personalized requirements, and that means Helm must have dynamic, flexible processes.

One of Helm’s central challenges in meeting customer expectations is shipping 90 percent of its orders same-day. Many of the products Helm ships out for its clients are for one- or two-day events – timing is everything.

It’s impossible for retailers, wholesalers and manufacturers to deny the allure of Amazon Prime.

That checkmark followed by the five blue letters next to your product offer a massive opportunity – the kind that could change your business forever. Not only is the list of Prime members growing each and every day, but many of those members order primarily or exclusively items guaranteed to be at their doorstep in two days.

At first, it may not make sense: how could not replacing your warehouse management system cost your business money? After all, a warehouse management system (WMS) replacement project brings costs around licensing, services and, in some cases, hardware and additional staffing.

Omnichannel is no longer a trendy industry buzzword for retailers – it’s now the reality in which they operate. Some retailers have dived headfirst into this environment; others have been slower to adapt. But every large retailer is selling online and through retail stores, with other potential channels like drop shipping and buy online, pickup in store.

To accomplish that goal, retailers are investing more time and dollars into what IDC Retail Insights senior analyst Victoria Brown called “digital transformation” at a presentation Monday at HighJump Elevate 2017. The goal of that transformation is to blend the physical and digital experiences into one. Processes like automated supply (a new way to handle replenishment) and augmented living (clients interact with technology in the store) are two examples of this transformation.

There was a time, not so long ago, when distributors had one straightforward job: retail store fulfillment. Push the product out to stores, which sold it to customers with limited purchasing options.

That model has of course changed drastically – and quickly. Warehouses for companies that own brick-and-mortar stores still do store replenishment, but they also must juggle broken-case store picking, drop shipping on behalf of other online retailers, direct-to-consumer orders and more. Even though fulfilling orders for eCommerce and traditional retail operations are very different tasks, they are often running side-by-side, in the same warehouse.

HighJump, a global provider of supply chain network solutions, announced today that it has acquired RedTail Solution, Inc., a leading US provider of managed cloud service solutions for Electronic Data Interchange and global data synchronization network to mid-size suppliers and manufacturers.